Thursday, December 10, 2015

Frank Miller's Dark Knight returned again in November, giving DC the top slot on a new comic book chart otherwise dominated by Marvel, according to a report released today by Diamond Comic Distributors, Comichron projects the month's orders of new comics, graphic novels, and
magazines amounted to $52 million, up nearly 6% over last November, which also had four shipping weeks.

In past
years where sales have been up year-over-year, we've spoken of a "gravy
day" — the date when the previous year's dollar sales are surpassed,
making everything afterward gravy, so to speak. In one recent strong
year, that date had gone back into November; this year, the day is right
around today. Only $14 million in orders are needed in December for
2015 to top 2014. Comichron projects that 2015's Direct Market sales will finish at around $570 million, up by about 6%, or $30 million.

The aggregate change statistics:

Dollars

Units

November
2015 vs. October 2015

Comics

8.62%

4.93%

Graphic
novels

-11.93%

-10.96%

Total
Comics/Graphic novels

2.70%

3.80%

November
2015 vs. November 2014

Comics

30.05%

18.19%

Graphic
novels

-17.50%

-21.76%

Total
Comics/Graphic novels

13.84%

14.63%

Year-to-date
2015 vs. Year-to-date 2014

Comics

7.54%

5.45%

Graphic
novels

2.24%

3.06%

Total
Comics/Graphic novels

5.89%

5.26%

While periodical comics units were up more than 18%, dollars were up more than 30%
over the same month a year ago. The fact that market-topper Dark Knight III: The Master Race #1 was priced at nearly $6 had a lot to do with that. With eight issues scheduled, the title is expected to be a presence in the charts well into 2016. The top comic books:

Comic
Book

Price

Publisher

1

Dark Knight III: The
Master Race #1

$5.99

DC

2

Star Wars: Vader Down
#1

$4.99

Marvel

3

Deadpool #1

$4.99

Marvel

4

Secret Wars #7

$3.99

Marvel

5

Extraordinary X-Men
#1

$4.99

Marvel

6

All-New All-Different
Avengers #1

$4.99

Marvel

7

Star Wars #11

$3.99

Marvel

8

Uncanny X-Men #600

$5.99

Marvel

9

Star Wars #12

$3.99

Marvel

10

All New Wolverine #1

$4.99

Marvel

The first issue of Miller's previous entrant in the series, Dark Knight Strikes Again, had placed #1 in December 2001.

Dollar sales of graphic novels were down by 17.5%, but that translates to a smaller
dollar amount than the increase comic books saw, and there were 20 fewer graphic novels released in November
2015 versus November 2014. Sandman Overture led the chart:

Graphic
Novel

Price

Publisher

1

Sandman Overture
Deluxe Edition HC

$24.99

DC

2

Star Wars: Journey to
the Force Awakens: Shattered Empire

$16.99

Marvel

3

Star Wars: Princess
Leia

$16.99

Marvel

4

Ms. Marvel Volume 4:
Last Days

$17.99

Marvel

5

Spider-Gwen Vol. 0:
Most Wanted

$16.99

Marvel

6

Deadpool Vs. Thanos

$16.99

Marvel

7

Low Volume 2: Before
The Dawn Burns Us

$14.99

Image

8

Vampirella #1969

$7.99

Dynamite

9

Star Wars: Kanan
Volume 1: The Last Padawan

$19.99

Marvel

10

Saga Volume 5

$14.99

Image

Having the top performers in both categories helped DC close the gap with Marvel somewhat. The market shares:

Dollar
Share

Unit Share

Marvel

43.20%

47.65%

DC

26.35%

26.09%

Image

8.67%

10.02%

IDW

4.42%

3.50%

Dark Horse

3.17%

2.69%

Boom

1.96%

1.67%

Dynamite

1.90%

1.60%

Oni

1.06%

0.61%

Titan

0.73%

0.64%

Valiant

0.73%

0.87%

Other

7.82%

4.66%

New title volume was relatively light, with 42 fewer items released. The number of new releases by type and publisher:

Comics shipped

Graphic novels
shipped

Magazines shipped

Total
shipped

Marvel

72

39

0

111

DC

77

27

0

104

Image

61

14

0

75

IDW

42

22

0

64

Dark
Horse

36

15

0

51

Boom

27

11

0

38

Dynamite

19

5

0

24

Titan

11

6

5

22

Valiant

9

5

0

14

Oni

6

6

0

12

Other

110

131

34

275

Total

470

281

39

790

The per-title estimates will be along next week.

Comichron.com curator John Jackson Miller
has tracked the comics industry for more than 20 years, including a
decade editing the industry's retail trade magazine; he is the author of
several guides to comics, as well as more than a hundred comic books
for various franchises.

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